


Among Branches, In the Roots

by deathwailart



Series: Damhnait Mahariel [8]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dalish, Dalish Origin, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 12:38:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2388470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after she leaves her clan to become a Warden, years after she become a Hero, a Warden-Commander, an Arlessa, Damhnait Mahariel leaves it all behind and finds solace and a new clan in Velanna and Merrill.  Set slightly after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2062794">Cache</a> but that's not essential to understand the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among Branches, In the Roots

Velanna is the one she tracks down first.  
  
There are many miles beneath her feet by the time she finds her lost friend, at a campfire, alone as she was when first they met. There's no anger this time, not even after how they parted, just surprise in Velanna's eyes as she beckons Damhnait forward, setting her stave back on the ground. Damhnait understands that instinct, always having a weapon close at hand and after everything they've been through, everything Velanna went through before and whatever she's done since she departed from the Vigil, it's unthinkable not to keep one close. She doesn't doubt that Velanna still carries a small knife too, one even smaller than a dagger, just like Damhnait does, small enough to fit in one palm but deadly. Perfect for cutting a throat or being tossed through the air to land in the back of someone's head.  
  
"Andaran atish'an lethallan," Velanna greets as though it has not been so long since they last spoke, as though there were no angry words that were never really about Seranni, they were about something else, everything else. Her hound bounds over, not caring about any tension that might be there, excited to see an old friend and Velanna leans forward to scratch behind his ears until he's flopped on his side, stub of a tail wagging so fast it's just a blur.  
  
"I have game," Damhnait announces, holding two hares and a fat wood pigeon aloft, "we can share if I can sit by your fire and rest here for the night." It's perhaps a gamble when she isn't sure how Velanna feels about her now with time and distance and the Wardens at their back but she doesn't want to fight, she's too tired for that and if refused, she'll find somewhere else for the night, her legs have handled longer marches.  
  
"Hand me the pigeon, I'll pluck it while you skin them. Sit down before you fall." As ever there's an edge to Velanna's words but Damhnait has missed that as much as Velanna herself and she smiles, handing over the pigeon as she drops her pack and fishes out a knife to start cutting.  
  
Simple work in silence, the way it was with her and Tamlen once. _We were children_ , she thinks, _simple naive children_. This was never their whole dinner, they always had food from camp but it was about being real hunters, like the first time they killed wolves and learned to skin them, made their pelts into warm blankets that weren't as good as the ones they already had made by more skilled hands but they were _their_ pelts. One of the first times she ever kissed Tamlen they were curled up on their pelts, nervous and laughing as their noses got in the way at first and they both kept leaning in the wrong way until finally she grabbed him and overbalanced, breathless when she landed on top of him as they _finally_ kissed. She misses him still, not the fresh wound it was once, an old scar that hurts whenever she puts pressure on it, whenever she puts it under strain. Maybe if she'd had her clan, if she'd had Marethari there to give her the advice she wanted...or maybe if she'd had Ashalle. As she works, the fire crackling away, Velanna humming a tune under her breath when she's not muttering at stubborn feathers, she wonders what that girl in the woods with Tamlen would have thought of the woman sitting at this fire right now. It's not a new thought, not since she had time to really think about things, about what she's done, they've been there ever since she realised she was going to take up the post at the Vigil, for better or worse.  
  
Maybe she's still a girl, just a different girl. She loved being praised but she was always so sure, always rushing into each thing she was asked or running away from it with her friends, laughing all the while. But then she always had Ashalle at the end of the day to give her advice when it was needed even if it wasn't always wanted or appreciated at the time, to scold her too, all the little things a parent would probably do that Ashalle did for her because she _was_ her mother, in all the ways that really counted. She wants Ashalle the way she has always wanted Ashalle. Wynne tried – not knowingly perhaps but in that way older women who think they know better just because they've lived longer do – to take that sort of role and it was all Damhnait could do not to scream at her. She wanted Marethari, Ashalle, Paivel, Ilen, she wanted them all to remind her of the right thing to do because she's made mistakes, she knows that, if they'd been there maybe she would have tried harder.  
  
She could have given them Tamlen's body instead of scrabbling a grave together with her bare hands, refusing all help from Alistair when he hovered because he lost Duncan but that wasn't the same, she didn't care then and she doesn't now, it wasn't that same loss as though she'd had a limb hacked off, expected to trot along willingly. She didn't even have anything to plant over it but some elfroot and she had to lead, she couldn't just pass that responsibility to someone else, she had to shoulder it like she had to shoulder everything else, fresh from the horror of her fate, of staring a Broodmother in the face and it wasn't fair. She didn't want platitudes from Alistair about loss when he'd been allowed silence and to step back from being the senior of the two of them when she tried to learn how to lead in a world she didn't understand, that hated her at every turn, feared her, mistrusted her. She wanted to be with her clan and to be safe with them, to hold the next boy born to them so she might whisper stories of his namesake to him and swear to watch over him all of his days.  
  
All she could give Tamlen was a grave a scavenger likely disrupted or some Darkspawn, or maybe someone who could raise the dead, marked by a pathetic sprout of elfroot. All she could give her clan was her word that she had seen him in this world and put him to rest.  
  
Even then that was only Ashalle.  
  
"Damhnait!"  
  
Velanna's voice is loud and she jumps, almost stabbing into the flesh below her thumb. "Sorry," she mutters, letting Velanna finish preparations as the other woman takes the skinned hares from her, "I was miles away."  
  
"I understand. I've...I've had a lot of time to think since I left. I'm not apologising." She adds the last part quickly and Damhnait smiles, reaching out to warm her hands by the fire, Velanna's hair turned burnished gold and amber from it.  
  
"I'd never think that of you."  
  
"And you called me a harpy."  
  
"Me? Never."  
  
"Your face said it for you."  
  
It's been far too long since she last laughed, _really_ laughed and even if the hares are skinnier than she'd like and in places the meat is charred, it's still good. They sit close and lick the juices from their fingers and save the bones in a small pile for her hound even after they both feed him a little meat from their hares and the pigeon. Damhnait has Antivan brandy in her pack, a habit she picked up from Zevran when he bought a bottle once and shared it with her, liquid fire that still makes her choke and it's different, drinking with Velanna in silence compared to how Zevran would make her laugh until the brandy shot out her nose and left her swearing and threatening to gut him. She misses him more than the rest of her companions fighting the Blight and wonders how he's doing but he was still a city elf, as alien to her as the Dalish are to them. Velanna has berries, still a little tart when burst of juice hits her tongue but it's fresh and clean, living from the land rather than all the meals she's had made for her at the Vigil by others.  
  
Velanna is the one who catches her chin and kisses her, lips dark as the berries they're eating and it hasn't been as long as it was since Tamlen but it feels like a lifetime as she curls her fingers in Velanna's robes so she won't disappear. There's more to say but it's a long walk to where they have to go so Damhnait breaks the kiss to breath, resting her forehead against Velanna's so she just laughs quietly and breathes, moving only when her hound rests his slobbery face on her leg, whining to be petted.  
  
"I missed you. Missed this." She says at last when her hound is satisfied that he's not being left out anymore, returning to get whatever morsels he can from the bones they left for him. "You haven't been gone long but after meeting another Dalish-"  
  
"You met another?"  
  
"Aye, Arianne. She was looking for Morrigan and was I, she'd taken an artifact from them." Velanna rolls her eyes but says nothing, allowing Damhnait to continue. She's told the other elf about Morrigan, about her magic and her mother, Asha'bellanar. She hasn't told her about the ritual they performed together out of friendship and perhaps some sort of love had circumstances been different that saved Damhnait's life that means there's a son out there, the blood of the Dalish in his veins with Morrigan's magic woven into every fibre of his being and whatever part of the Taint or Old God that was drawn towards him. She doesn't know how to explain that, she doesn't know how to feel about it so it's safer if only a few know. "I went back to where I lost Tamlen..." Velanna grips her hand tight, not offering words because there will never be words for a loss like that, Velanna knows it better than most. It gives her the strength to explain it all, the eluvian, finding that book in the tower, the lights and Velanna's eyes are bright with unshed tears by the end.  
  
"Ma serannas," Velanna whispers when she's finally done and they shared more brandy between them. "Come, you should rest. _We_ should rest, we have a decision to make in the morning."  
  
"About..." Damhnait hasn't hoped in a long time, it's never done her the slightest bit of good but Velanna's hand is warm in hers and she can still taste her on her lips.  
  
"Where we travel come the morrow. Together."  
  
She smiles again, telling her hound to keep watch even though she knows both her and Velanna will wake and trade shifts, light sleepers by necessity, both of them still plagued by Darkspawn dreams. She lets Velanna loosen her braids, carefully plucks the leather that keeps Velanna's bun in place and curls against her, hand over her heart to feel it thump beneath her palm, a reassurance she hasn't had in such a long time. When dawn comes they break their fast with some dried meat Damhnait took from the Vigil and a few more berries, passing a waterskin between them as they gather their packs and weapons, covering over the fire and the last few bones, the feathers in Damhnait's pack should she need them and the skins stolen by some wild creature during the night.  
  
"Where do you want to go?" Velanna asks as they inspect their little camp just to be sure they've left as few traces as possible  
  
"The Hinterlands. When I was named Hero," she pauses and trails off because was that her? It wasn't so long ago but at times it feels as though it was another life, another her.  "I was granted a boon for my people. Land to call our own only I never saw it, I ended up at the Vigil."  
  
"A new home," Velanna says softly. "I still have that diary you gave me, the blank one."  
  
"It's a long walk."  
  
"As is every walk for our people."  
  
Damhnait smiles, shouldering her pack as the hound trots ahead of them. It's been so long since she last had a home and it's not Arlathan, it's not even the Dales, it's near Ostagar of all places but it's _home_ and it belongs to them and if anything truly good came from everything Damhnait did then it's that.  
  
And now she won't be coming home alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from:  
> Maybe you are searching among branches  
> for what only appears in the roots  
> \- Rumi


End file.
